


Time's Fool

by doomed_spectacles



Series: If I could love like anybody else [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), References to Shakespeare, Romance, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21865417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomed_spectacles/pseuds/doomed_spectacles
Summary: Crowley's plans, no matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof, will always wreck him. Especially when his plan is to propose marriage to his hereditary enemy using poetry written 400 years ago and sealed in a book in a bookshop run by an angel determined never to let any of his books see the light of day.Or,Crowley tries very hard to propose to Aziraphale in a romantic manner. Aziraphale is, perhaps unsurprisingly, oblivious.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: If I could love like anybody else [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1504748
Comments: 23
Kudos: 138





	Time's Fool

**Author's Note:**

> I am not typically a romantic person. *ahem* But these two bring whatever tiny bit of romance exists in my soul to the fore and I am grudgingly grateful for it. <3 (Apologies to Shakespeare. And Marlowe.)

[2024]

Crowley woke with a start. His hair stuck to his face on one side and flared out in a chaotic half halo on the other. He flung his arms out, one around Aziraphale's shoulders in a protective hug and the other randomly stabbing at the invisible enemies that dared to wake him in his own bed. Aziraphale's bed. Their bed. The thought of _their bed_ still sent a shiver down his spine.

"Mmmangelswhazzwrong," he slurred. His yellow eyes flashed, full snake.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale grabbed his shoulders and held him tight, urgently saying his name.

"Whazzit, angel?" Crowley looked around, confused. He didn't see or sense anything amiss. But Aziraphale's face was flushed and his grip on Crowley's shoulders was painfully tight. The angel in his bed shaking his shoulders was incredibly strong. Their bed. He couldn't help the hiss creeping into his voice as he asked, "Whatssss wrong?"

"How long has this been here?!"

Crowley blinked and a very old book was shoved in his face. Ah.

"Errrm, I guess," he said, making noises that eventually formed the words, "six months?"

"Crowley!" Aziraphale blew out a breath and sat back, releasing his hold on Crowley's shoulders.

Aziraphale set the four hundred year old quarto edition on his thigh. A blue ribbon stuck out midway through the ancient volume, marking a page.

Crowley ran a hand through his hair, feeling cold without Aziraphale holding him. He sat up and tried to face his frantic angel but without sunglasses he couldn't bear the force of Aziraphale's face full of pleading love. Arranging his face into something approaching nonchalance, he shrugged.

"Crowley. This is- you wanted me to find-"

He nodded, still looking safely somewhere in the middle distance above his bed. Their bed.

"That time you told me I was quoting Number 18 wrong and I should check the book?" Aziraphale asked.

He nodded.

"I said I'd never misquoted a Sonnet in my life and told you in no uncertain terms what I thought of the suggestion! Crowley!" Aziraphale's voice got louder and higher and more indignant. "I was downright _rude_ and you just took me to lunch! We had pizza!"

Crowley couldn't help the smile. It'd break his face if he didn't let it out. Aziraphale huffed and he moved closer so he could sit with his side pressed against the sputtering angel. "It was good pizza, too."

"And the time you asked me to read to you before bed? That time you specifically requested something _nice_ , in _iambic pentameter_ , from the _seventeenth century_?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley rolled his eyes and his whole head followed suit, just to drive home the sarcasm. "Yeah, Doctor Faustus was definitely _not_ what I had in mind, thank you very much. Very clever, you."

Aziraphale cleared his throat. He fiddled with the ribbon sticking out of the book. "The time you knocked my entire poetry section over and I had to redo the entire thing?"

"That was legitimately an accident, angel- I said I was-"

Aziraphale interrupted him, his voice frantic. "Crowley! You've been trying to get me to look in this book for six months and I've been completely oblivious?"

"Umm, yeah?" His voice went up an octave on the last word, either from exhaustion or the intense stare Aziraphale had trained on him. He took his hand. "It worked eventually, didn't it?"

"Crowley," Aziraphale whispered. "You've been trying to propose marriage to me. For months. Using a love poem."

He took the book from Aziraphale's lap and opened it to Sonnet 116. The blue ribbon marking the page was tied around a simple golden band.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments," he read. He took Aziraphale's hand but couldn't look at him. He focused on the words, printed in 1609 and addressed to a youth Crowley had only glimpsed once. "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."[1]

He took a deep breath. "Damn. I did this a thousand times in my head, now it's-" He looked at Aziraphale and broke completely. "Look it's not a big- I'm - time's fool and you know, I guess ..."

He gulped. The words swam on the page. "Oh Hell, Heaven, it's just that you're _it_ , you know? You're the star to my wandering boat, and I thought - mmph!"

He was interrupted by a very thorough kiss. Aziraphale held both sides of his head and kissed him like kissing him was the most important thing in the world he could be doing. Crowley moaned into his mouth and kissed him back, the rest of the poem forgotten in the movements of very soft angelic lips against his.

Aziraphale's tongue was busy exploring his mouth and he'd climbed into Crowley's lap when Crowley remembered what he'd planned to do six months ago.

"Wait, Aziraphale, wait," Crowley said, holding his wrists and pulling back. "Let me do this."

He felt around under Aziraphale's leg for the book. The angel was lying on top of the rare edition but didn't seem to care one bit.

Carefully, Crowley retrieved the ring from its place marking the poem. He untied the ribbon and held it in his palm. His eyes were wide and completely golden. Crowley took a deep breath and placed the ring on the fourth finger of Aziraphale's left hand. He couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop the astonishment from leaking out of his pores.

"Angel," he whispered, "will you marry-"

" _Yes!_ " Aziraphale flung his arms around Crowley, knocking him backwards and covering his stunned face with kisses.

Crowley threw the book aside and flipped them over, pinning Aziraphale to his bed. Their bed.

**Author's Note:**

> 1Sonnet 116  
> Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
> Admit impediments. Love is not love  
> Which alters when it alteration finds,  
> Or bends with the remover to remove.  
> O no! it is an ever-fixed mark  
> That looks on tempests and is never shaken;  
> It is the star to every wand'ring bark,  
> Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.  
> Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
> Within his bending sickle's compass come;  
> Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,  
> But bears it out even to the edge of doom.  
> If this be error and upon me prov'd,  
> I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.  [ return to text ]
> 
>   
> [this is me on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/doomed-spectacles)


End file.
